I installed OpenBSD 5.3 amd64 release on my laptop the other day, and was trying some things out tonight and got into trouble.

I was looking at the apm tools and so started apmd

#apmd

and then tried suspend mode

#apm -z

There was a message that suspend mode will be entered momentarily. After that the system is locked and I can't wake it up. Doesn't respond to keyboard, function keys or pings. I tried pressing the power button for > 5 seconds, and it won't even shut off.

Now I disconnected the A/C adapter and am waiting 3 hours for the battery to drain. That should shut it off, but is it likely to start up when I plug it in again, or am I bricked?

I plugged in a USB-powered chill mat. both to keep the thing cooler as temp regulation was non-existent, and to drain the battery quicker. Power went off after 2 hours, without even the charge-indicator light flashing beforehand.

I plugged the A/C power back in. Machine stayed dark; good. Hit the power switch and it came up as usual. Booted Linux ok. Rebooted to OpenBSD and only thing was it had to check the filesystems first and mark 'em clean.

Seems to be ok. Whewww. Hope I won't fall into that one again too soon.

Thanks, I didn't know about that. On one occasion though I held the power button down quite long ( ~ 15 sec? ) and it didn't shut off. Perhaps it's not supported by my laptop, or it was just that locked up. Maybe I can try it again sometime when the battery is low.

Quote:

Pulling a laptop battery is usually faster than waiting for it to slowly drain.

Yes, I considered that but was leery to do it on a "running" system, partly since I'd never pulled the battery before, and I was a bit nervous etc. Once the chill mat brought the temp down I decided to wait it out.